When you have a problem, the first thing to remember when asking about it in a newsgroup or mailing list is that your readers cannot look over your shoulder and tell you where you went wrong. You need to explain the problem in such a way that the people who aren’t there next to you can understand what’s going on. The easiest way to do that is to show your code.
It should be obvious that if you want people to tell you what’s wrong with your code, then you need to post the code that’s wrong. Apparently, it’s not really that obvious. Some people seem to try to explain the problem without looking at their code. Instead, they type new code into their composition windows. The problem, of course, is that the code in the message often does not match the code that led to the problem.
The single best way to ensure that everyone sees the same code as what caused the problem is for you to copy and paste the code directly from Delphi’s edit window.
If your code is too long to post, then try to trim it down to something shorter. When you do that, though, be sure to confirm that the pared-down code still exhibits the same problem. Often, the mere act of shortening the code will be enough for you to identify and fix the problem yourself, thus saving yourself the time of posting a message and waiting for replies.
You should make an effort to ensure that the code you post is compilable. That is, not only should you copy your code out of Delphi’s editor, but readers should be able to paste your code into their own Delphi editors to run your code. When you type your code into your e-mail program, you are liable to introduce new bugs and typos that were not in your real code. That will prevent others from running your code. Worse, rather than finding the real problem, readers will instead point to the typos thinking they are the cause of the problem. It wastes everyone’s time.